Donald Trump's Actions Constitute a Threat to Our Social Fabric.
His domestic and foreign initiatives – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process in the past to current actions and threats – undermine both national and global legal frameworks. However, the issue goes deeper.
They jeopardize the core idea of a civilized world.
The guiding principle of any advanced culture is to prevent the stronger from attacking and exploiting the vulnerable. Failing that, we could find ourselves trapped in a brutish war where only the fittest prevails.
This principle is embedded of the nation's founding texts. This is also the core of the postwar international order supported by the US, emphasizing international cooperation, popular sovereignty, individual liberties, and the rule of law.
Yet, it is a vulnerable construct, often broken by those who choose to misuse their influence. Upholding it necessitates that the influential have a sense of duty to abstain from seeking temporary advantages, and that society ensure they answer for their actions should they falter.
Absolute power does not make right. It results in turmoil, disruption, and conflict.
Each instance entities that are wealthier and stronger attack and exploit those that are not, the framework of civilization weakens. If these actions are allowed to continue, the structure collapses. Allowing it to persist, the world can fall into chaos and war. We have seen this pattern previously.
Today, we live in a international landscape with deepening divides. Influence and wealth are increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This invites the elite to take advantage of the disadvantaged because they feel omnipotent.
The resources of certain tycoons is difficult to fathom. The influence of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors extends over a vast portion of the world. AI is could centralize economic and political clout to a greater degree. The military might of the world's largest nations is unmatched in recorded history.
Empowered by political allies and a pliant judicial body, the highest office has been turned into the most dominant and unchecked instrument of government in the modern era.
Put it all together and you see the threat.
A direct line ties earlier transgressions to present-day provocations. Each were founded upon the hubris of invincibility.
You see a similar pattern in international affairs: in territorial invasions, in expansive ambitions, and in the global depredation by massive conglomerates.
However, strength without restraint does not create right. It makes for fragility, upheaval, and war.
The lessons of the past reveal that rules and conventions to constrain the powerful also shield them. Without such constraints, their relentless pursuit for greater influence and riches ultimately bring them down – and with them their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for world war.
This kind of contempt for legal order will cast a long shadow over international stability – and indeed civilized conduct – for years to come.
